The Young and the Restless
The Young and the Restless (often abbreviated as Y&R) is an American television soap opera created by Lee Phillip Bell and the late William J. Bell for CBS. It first broadcast on March 26, 1973 as half-hour episodes, five times a week but by February 4, 1980 it expanded to one hour episodes. Set in Genoa City, Wisconsin, the show originally focused on two core families: the wealthy Brooks family and the working class Foster family. After a series of recasts and departures, all the original characters except Jill Abbott Fenmore were written out. Bell replaced them with new families, the Abbotts and the Williamses. Over the years, other families such as the Newmans, Winters, and the Baldwin-Fishers were introduced. Despite these changes, one storyline that has endured through almost the show's entire run is the feud between Jill and Katherine Chancellor, the longest rivalries on any American soap opera. Since its debut, The Young and the Restless has won a total seven Daytime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Drama Series in 1975, 1983, 1985, 1986, 1993, 2004, and 2007, and was won a complete total of 56 Daytime Emmy Awards. It is also currently the highest-rated daytime drama on American television. As of 2008, it has appeared at the top of the weekly Neilsen ratings in that category for more than 1,000 weeks since 1988. The series, along with Days of Our Lives, has been renewed through 2013 with optional 2014. Y&R is also a sister show to Bell's CBS soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful, as several actors have crossed over between the shows since 1993. Production To compete with the youthful ABC soap operas, All My Children, One Life to Live, and General Hospital, CBS executives wanted a new daytime serial that was youth oriented. William J. Bell and Lee Phillip Bell created The Young and the Restless in 1972 for the network under the working title, The Innocent Years! "We were confronted with the very disturbing reality that young Americans had lost much of its innocence," Bell said. "Innocence as we had known and lived it all our lives had, in so many respects, ceased to exist." They changed the title of the series to The Young and the Restless because they felt it "reflected the youth and mood of the early 1970s." The Bells named the fictional setting for the show after the real Genoa City, Wisconsin, which was located on their way to their then-home in Chicago to their annual summer vacation spot in Lake Geneva. The Young and the Restless began airing on March 26, 1973, replacing the cancelled soap, Where The Heart Is. Bell worked as head writer from the debut of the series until his retirement in 1998. He wrote from his home in Chicago while production took place in Los Angeles. John Conboy acted as the show's first executive producer, staying in the position until 1982. Bell and H. Wesley Kenney became co-executive producers that year until Edward Scott took over in 1989. Bell then became senior executive producer. Other executive producers included David Shaughnessy (1992-2004), John F. Smith (2003-2006), Lynne Marie Latham (2006-2007), Josh Griffith (2006-2008, 2008), Maria Arena Bell (2008-2012), and Paul Rauch (2008-present). In the mid-1980s, Bell and his family moved to Los Angeles to create a new soap opera. During this time, his three children, William Jr., Bradley, and Lauralee Bell, each became involved in soap operas. Lauralee Bell worked as an actress on Y&R. Bradley co-created The Bold and the Beautiful with his father in 1987. William Bell Jr. became involved in the family's production companies as president of Bell Dramatic Serial Co. and Bell-Phillip Television Productions Inc. "It's worked out very well for us because we really all worked in very different aspects of the show," William Jr said. "With my father and I, it was a great kind of partnership and pairing in the sense that he had total control of the creative side of the show and I didn't have even the inclination to interject in what he was doing." After Bell's retirement in 1998, a number of different head writers took over the position, including Kay Alden (1998-2006), Trent Jones (2000-2004), John F. Smith (2002-2006), Lynne Marie Latham (2006-2007), Scott Hamner (2006-2007, 2008, 2008-2012), Josh Griffith (2007-2008, 2012-present), Maria Arena Bell (2008-2012), and Hogan Sheffer (2008-2012). In 2012, former General Hospital executive producer, Jill Farren Phelps, was hired as the new executive producer of the soap, replacing Bell. Griffith was also named the sole head writer. Videotaping and Broadcasting Taped at CBS Television City in studios 41 and 43 in Hollywood since its debut in 1973, the show was packaged by the distribution company Columbia Pictures Television. Y&R originally aired as a half-hour series on CBS and was the first soap opera to focus on the visual aspects of production, creating "a look that broke with the visual conventions of the genre." Similar to the radio serials that had preceded them, soap operas at the time primarily focused on dialogue, characters, and story, with details like sets as secondary concerns. Y&R stood out by using unique lighting techniques and camera angles, similar to Hollywood-style productions. The style of videotaping included using out-of-the-ordinary camera angles and a large number of facial close-ups with bright lighting on the actors' faces. Conboy said he used lighting to create "artistic effects." Those effects made the series look dark, shadowy, and moody. Y&R look influenced the taping styles of other soaps. When H. Wesley Kenney replaced Conboy as executive producer in 1982, he balanced the lighting of the scenes. Due to the huge success of the series, CBS and their affiliates pressured Bell to extend the series from a half-hour to a full hour in 1980. Bell attributed this change to the show's fall from number one in the Neilsen ratings, since the lengthening of the show led to the departure of a number of cast members. "The issue of performing in a one-hour show had not been part of their contracts," Bell said. This forced the show to recast multiple main characters and eventually phase out the original core families in favor of new ones. On June 27, 2001, Y&R became the first daytime soap opera to be broadcast in high-definition. In September 2011, its sister soap, B&B became the last soap opera to make the transition in HD. Casting and Story Development William J. Bell and Lee Phillip Bell centered the series around two core families: the wealthy Brooks and the poor Fosters. Bell borrowed this technique of soap opera building from his mentor, Irna Phillips. While casting for the series, Bell and executive producer John Conboy auditioned over 500 actors for the 13 main characters. They assembled the youngest group of actors ever cast on a soap opera at the time, hiring mostly unknown actors who they considered "glamorous model types." Chemistry between the actors also factored in the criteria. The stories focused on the younger characters, with an emphasis in fantasy. The fantasy element was reflected in the love story between Jill Foster and the millionaire Phillip Chancellor II; the Leslie Brooks, Brad Elliot, and Laurie Brooks love triangle; and Snapper Foster's romance with Chris Brooks. Sexuality also played a major role in the stories. Formerly, soap operas did not delve into the sexual side of their romances. Bell changed that, first during his time as head writer on Days of Our Lives and again on Y&R. William Gary Espy's Snapper Foster is considered the "first to discover sex on a soap opera." During the story, the character is engaged to Chris Brooks (played by Trish Stewart) and having a sexual relationship with Sally McGuire (played by Lee Crawford). Other plots reflected sexual themes as well. For the first time in the genre, the dialogue and the story situations included explicit sexual themes such as premarital intercourse, sodomy, impotence, incest, and rape. The series also explored social issues. Jennifer Brooks underwent the first mastectomy on a soap opera. Other social issue storylines included bulimia, alcoholism, and cancer. Lesbianisms was also touched on with Katherine Chancellor (played by the late Jeanne Cooper), who flirts with Jill while drunk in 1974 and has a brief relationship with Joanne Curtis (played by Kay Heberle) in 1977. When the series lengthened to an hour in 1980, multiple cast members who portrayed characters from the original core families departed because their contracts only bound them to performing in a half-hour show. A number of the characters were recast until one of the few remaining original actors, Jaime Lyn Bauer, who portrayed Laurie Brooks, decided to leave. When she announced her intention not to renew her contract, Bell decided to replace the original core families. "As I studied the remaining cast, I realized I had two characters - Paul Williams, played by Doug Davidson, and Jack Abbott, played by Terry Lester - both of whom had a relatively insignificant presence on the show," Bell said. "They didn't have families. Hell, they didn't even have bedrooms. But these became the two characters I would build our two families around." The characters from the Abbott and Williams families were integrated into the series while the Brooks and Foster families, with the exception of Jill, were phased out. The continuity of the feud between Katherine and Jill, which began in the early years of the show, smoothed the transition. The relationship between the two women remained a central theme throughout the series and became the longest lasting rivalry in daytime history. Another character introduced in the 1980s was the famous Victor Newman, played by The Rat Patrol's Eric Braeden. Originally, the character was "a despicable, contemptible, unfaithful wife abuser" who was intended to be killed off. Braeden's tenure on the show was meant to last between 8 and 12 weeks. "When I saw Eric Braeden's first performance - the voice, the power, the inner-strength - I knew immediately that I didn't want to lose this man," Bell said. "He was exactly what the show needed. Not the hateful man we saw on-screen, but the man he could and would become." Bell rewrote the story to save the character and put Braeden on contract. Victor's romance with Nikki Reed (played by Melody Thomas Scott) became a prominent plot in the series. With the success of another iconic character, Kimberlin Brown's Sheila Carter, Bell made daytime drama history in 1992 by successfully crossing her over from Y&R to his second soap, B&B. The success of the crossover was due in part to the creativity of Bell, as the nefarious character of Sheila was presumed to have died in a fire on Y&R. In the 1990s, core black characters were introduced with the Barber and Winters family. Victoria Rowell and Tonya Le Williams were cast as Drucilla Winters and Olivia Winters respectively as the nieces of Abbott's maid, Mamie Johnson, in 1990. The Winter brothers, Neil and Malcolm (played by Kristoff St. John and Shemar Moore) were introduced as love interests for Olivia and Drucilla. Y&R became popular among black viewers, which Williams and St. John attributed to the writing for the black characters. "I play a CEO at a major corporation, that's something we don't see that often," St. John said. "And the show doesn't use the old African-American stereotypes that we have been seeing on TV, like the hustler, the pimp, the drug dealer. We have come a long way." Though the characters held prominent positions in the fictional work place of Genoa City, they had little interaction with other characters outside of their jobs. Executive Producers and Head Writers Head Writers *William J. Bell (1973-1998) *Kay Alden (1997-2006) *Trent Jones (2000-2002) *John F. Smith (2002-2006) *Lynne Marie Latham (2006-2007) *Scott Hamner (2006-2007, 2008-2012) *Josh Griffith (2007-2008, 2012-2013) *Maria Arena Bell (2007-2012) *Hogan Sheffer (2008-2013) *Tracey Thomson (2012-present) *Shelley Altman & Jean Passanante (2013-present) Cast Current Cast Members Recurring Cast Members Upcoming Cast Members